"Reprint" Some personal understanding of technical art

2011.7.21, the early morning egg ache, hence updated a bit

What is technical art and what is needed:

To my understanding, the technical art of the game industry (Technical Artist) should be originated in the film animation inside the technical guidance or technical Director (Technical Director). There is also the R & R (Research and development Research and development) this often matches the title of the technical art or technical guidance that preceded it. Although there are two positions of technical arts and technology guidance, the requirements are more similar. In most cases, technical guidance refers to the art of years of experience, the mastery of scripts is only optional skills, mostly responsible for the art in the daily production of software, process problems. Technical Art The corresponding software scripts such as MaxScript or Mel are necessary skills, other scripts or languages such as Python, c#\c++ and the like as optional skills, can not have a longer art work experience, compared to technical guidance, technology art of the procedural ability better, art work experience can be very weak, Responsible for the development of some tools and as a bridge between art and procedure. The two are just a little different definition of division of labor, and this difference is very vague.

As for what technical art needs, I personally think that the style of acting is far more important than what has been mastered. So, first of all, technical art should dare touch anything, as long as the art, graphics and games within the scope, dare to learn any field of knowledge. It sounds simple, it's not easy. You can look around, that's what most people say, but it's not. As for why this, because in the production process of the game will encounter a variety of assorted things need to be solved, may have to touch maxscript, perhaps also need to touch Photoshop JavaScript, may also need to use Python or C # to deal with some of the usual small problems, Even to the existing tools to make some changes, of course, the most basic role is as the middle layer of fine arts and procedures, responsible for the exchanges between the two sides, to do an interface person, the same, in order to do the interface people have to contact some of the concept of graphics, related mathematical concepts and the concept of game logic.

Secondly, like to do art work or games, like to go through the whole process, from the model to the animation, special effects, of course, can write a game to show the best, or write a demo with the existing engine. In this respect, art and procedural skills are not required to achieve the quality of the product level, as long as it can be roughly done, to understand the art of the tools and techniques used are basically almost. Skill requirements are not high, but like to play these, that is, need to have higher or even very high interest. Why do you need to enjoy playing with these? Because I think the tools of the program often make art feel bad because the program does not always work with these tools, so they consider such factors as extension, flexibility, stability, and perhaps the convenience of the most commonly used things in art is ignored. Then the art put forward the demand, submitted to the program, and then the program to see, "Oh, the original this is not good use, but now there is more important work to do, such as XXX loopholes, this is not a good use of the problem on the first shelve it." So, it was put on hold indefinitely. If you say technical art, just write some scripts or even a professional program, but he usually does not use the tools of art, then things are like the original, and there will be no improvement. At this point technical art serves as an art tool user experience designer's role. And this role ideally has the ability to develop tools. So the best situation arises-the user is the developer.

There is also a very important reason is that if a person who is completely ignorant of the program to communicate with the program (for example, to add a new function for the tool), the program will often directly rebuffed. In fact, the truth is very simple, if you do not understand, it is possible that I explain to you for a long while you still do not understand, and then I explain you also listen to, why listen not to go in, because do not understand. So the ideal state (such as each program will patiently explain all the problems, and art will try to figure out) may not need to understand the technical art, but the reality is so ruthless, this patient explanation of the state there is a great risk, because it is likely to spend a lot of time and futile (at this time, art students do not have to think that the program classmate If a person asks you what Max can do, think about how long you can be patient, then program knowledge becomes a necessary condition for technical art, hard skills and indispensable. Here I can cite an example, once a friend needs a Maya plugin, but that plugin does not have a 32-bit version. Fortunately the author is a Chinese, and released the source file download, so he went to find the author wants a 32 version, the author directly rebuffed him. Then the friend found me, I got the source after the discovery needs some library settings, then I went to the author to ask, the author very readily told me that the code has been discarded, if I need a version of the plugin, only need to send the corresponding mayasdk files to him, he will compile a copy sent to me. Many times this is so, even a little bit of knowing, will help you and the process of communication greatly.

Here is a digression, I found in the recent work, many times, art has never thought of the game can make a great breakthrough in the visual. In fact, this breakthrough requires the effective participation of art. Let me cite one of the most obvious examples. Action, especially in Max, Max has a simple and convenient CS, so many people do not understand the foundation of the skeleton, resulting in their own understanding of bones and animation is very humble, such as the common IK caused by the tremor, gimbal caused by the axial changes, scaling caused by the deformation of the sub-object, will not know the trace, And then you might even think it's a software problem. If you want to explain what functions need to be with the program, but also can not explain, such as the Dhalsim in the Street Fighter, you may lengthen the hands and feet, and Max, by default, in a single axial scaling will cause the rotation of its sub-object deformation, max itself can remove the child object scaling inheritance to prevent this problem. Some animators do not know the cause of the problem, even to the procedure to ask for the need to know how to mention, completely unable to communicate. How can a breakthrough be animated in this situation? Many fine arts, only hope that the program to provide a specification, and then step by step to complete, frankly, I think if the continuation of this ideology without change, this life is probably difficult to break through.

Technical art is difficult to find, as far as I know, most of the industry's technical art is only a few scripts of the art, including some industry-famous companies, procedural skills can reach the same as tool programmers few people. And to reach this level or close to this level of technical art is difficult to retain, first, if he is to make money, then to do game program more development space; second, if he is the pursuit of technology, starting from his own interests, the program is easy to occupy a large proportion in his direction, Ultimately, it is possible to be brought on a purely procedural path. Technical art that favors indie game developers is easier to maintain, but it's also easy to turn into a real indie game developer and finally get out of the team because of your interests. But these are not problems, the premise is that the team of art has a love of research technology atmosphere, has the spirit of research. I have always believed that the people are not bad for the team or the company, as long as the research can accumulate, the spirit can continue. This atmosphere than the recruitment of several top technical art is important, if not the atmosphere, to find more people, also useless, because the art and technical art between the elimination of the gap between the establishment of trust, very difficult. If in this case, technical art can easily be isolated, still can't stay. Therefore, instead of recruiting technical art to retain, it is better to spend more energy to cultivate the research atmosphere of fine arts, if there is no such atmosphere, even if there is technical art left, one can not play the best role, and secondly, it is likely to be a rookie of the muddle.

In addition, technical art is a lot of people as a program, the idea is wrong, first of all, he is a person who likes art, may not like to take this as a job, but at least to be able to do something and enjoy, on this basis he likes research skills, research basic knowledge, closely follow the technical changes. Of course, this may cause him to go further and farther in the process, but it doesn't mean that you should treat him as a program.

Here I can cite some of my examples, I like to study bone binding, so I did this, not because I like to do these things in development.

I do this because I like to play special effects, not because I like to develop.

Again, because I like three-dimensional animation, so I get kinectsdk after the first to do such things

Http://i.youku.com/u/UMzU2MTI5NDI0

I also like to make models, but really not good, this is completely unrelated to the code.

I think that if you look at technical art as a program, it's a very dangerous signal. The vast majority of people to learn MaxScript or Mel, Mayapython are not because they want to become a program, they just want to make themselves more convenient, or less affected by some of the software's existing functions, the same software is understood the reality of the needs of a variety, not all satisfied, That's why the script and SDK are available.

By treating them as programs, it's easy for them to really become programs and get away from art. This is the greatest sorrow.

I did not do after the work of what I can recognize, can take the shot of things, perhaps sad in sorrow, ah haha haha

"Reprint" Some personal understanding of technical art